A lawsuit brought against Gallaudet University by a partially deaf former dean alleges she suffered harassment and retaliation for “not being Deaf enough” is allowed to proceed by a D.C. federal court.

The claimant was a fully tenured professor at Gallaudet, which provides higher education for the deaf. In 2006, there was a protest by some Gallaudet students, faculty, staff, and alumni against the selection of a partially deaf candidate for university president. The claimant had supported the candidate, and she alleges that as a result, “and her not being Deaf enough,” she was “‘harassed by various Gallaudet faculty members and other employees,’ her job responsibilities were reduced, and she was excluded from administrative decisions in which she should have been included, and she was ‘the victim of defamatory falsehoods spread by Gallaudet employees and agents.’”

In deciding that the former dean stated a sufficient claim, the court observes that her “allegation that she was discriminated against because of the nature and extent of her disability, including the ways in which she chose to respond to her deafness, evokes a cause of action sufficiently analogous to the sex stereotyping claim found actionable” by the U.S. Supreme Court. “A decision based on a prejudgment of what level of disability or what response to one’s disability is acceptable or not acceptable is unlawful discrimination on the basis of disability in the same manner as the decision based on the stereotype that a female cannot be aggressive was found to be unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex in Price Waterhouse,” the court rules. The court also finds that the former dean’s allegation that “Gallaudet subjected her to harassment, including ‘defamatory comments and ostracization’ because she was not deaf/Deaf enough, and [that] it negatively affected the conditions of her employment” states a “hostile work environment claim with respect to harassment that occurred because of her disability.” Kimmel v Gallaudet University.